Terrorist cells have already been sent to Britain and Germany to launch Mumbai
style terrorist attacks, an al-Qaeda commander has claimed.

A Europe-wide terrorism alert has led to warnings from Britain, the US and Japan about travel across the continent amid fears of gun attacks on tourist sites and transport hubs.

It is understood the alert was sparked after an informant, Ahmad Sidiqi told US interrogators of the alleged plot.

Sidiqi said he had met Ilyas Kashmiri, a one-eyed commander linked with one of the men allegedly behind the attacks on Mumbai, India in 2008 that left 174 people dead.

During the camp fire chat in Pakistan, Kashmiri told Sidiqi that he had already sent teams to Britain and Germany to launch Mumbai-style attacks, the Daily Telegraph has learned.

Osama bin Laden is said to have given a general blessing to such attacks which would involve gunmen killing innocent civilians in crowded areas at random although there is nothing to connect him operationally to the plot. Security sources on both sides of the Atlantic say no targets or timings were discussed.

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MI5 and the German intelligence agency the BND are thought to have checked out the claims but found no terrorist teams returning from Pakistan that fit the description.

They are currently investigating whether a support network could be in place that is connected with Kashmiri.

An intercepted communication in Pakistan added to concerns, but gave no further details, sources say.

Sidiqi, a German national from Hamburg, was captured by the Americans in July and has been interrogated at Bagram in Afghanistan for the last two months.

The CIA has been able to kill some of those involved in planning the attacks using unmanned drones in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

Sidiqi worshiped at the same Hamburg mosque in Steindamm Street, formerly called the al-Quds, attended by the leaders of the September 11 attacks.

He traveled to Peshawar in Pakistan in March 2009 around the same time as around a dozen others from the mosque, moving to Mir Ali, a militant strong-hold in North Waziristan.

A US missile killed five German militants sheltering in a house in Mir Ali, according to reports by Pakistani intelligence officials on Monday.

Sidiqi has described a secretive meeting with a senior al-Qaeda commander called Younis al-Mauretani, a man he characterises as al-Qaeda’s third in command and a “spiritual leader,” according to reports.

He also met Kashmiri, sources say, an alleged terrorist who comes from Mirpur in Kashmir, from where many Pakistanis have emigrated to Britain.

Kashmiri is a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” by the Americans who is wanted in the US for plotting attacks on targets connected to Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed alongside David Coleman Headley, a US citizen facing charges connected to the Mumbai killings.

An alert in France, which has led to the evacuation of the Eiffel tower on two occasions, is said to be unconnected to Mumbai-style attacks and was issued because of another warning of attacks by the North African group, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

MI5 and Scotland Yard have been concerned for some time that terrorists could get hold of guns if they were to develop links with the criminal underworld.